From the comments: What can GOP candidate Pete Hoekstra's economic plans really do for Michigan?

View full sizeGazette News ServiceU.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra
U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, one of five candidates vying for the GOP nomination for governor, visited Kalamazoo for the first time Wednesday to lay out his plans to get Michigan’s sputtering economy moving again.

He spoke at the Beacon Club in Portage at an event hosted by the Kalamazoo Republican Women’s Association, and the story on MLive has people talking.

Hoekstra said that if elected governor, he would want to begin a
discussion in the first six months of his term to eliminate the state’s
“anti-business” tax code. He said that he would push to do away with
the state’s income tax, personal property tax and Small Business Tax.

Such
plans would reduce tax revenue, he said, but would free-up businesses
to add workers and create more economic opportunities for start-ups and
established businesses looking to expand.

tcmike231 was the first to chime in on MLive with questions about Hoekstra's budget plan of cutting taxes.

Nobody likes high taxes. The question that Mr. Hoekstra and nearly every other anti-tax candidate out there is, WHERE are you going to cut spending enough to balance the budget??

General statements about government being too big and taxes being too high are good sound bites, but real leadership means telling the truth about whether you're going to make up the revenue by slashing funding to our universities, high schools, highways, or natural resources. I would genuinely like to hear whether Mr. Hoekstra can really lower taxes in this state without severely damaging our infrastructure or young peoples' futures.

Soon after, movemeout responded with little positivity to tcmike231's concern about being able to lower taxes while preventing damage to our infrastucture or young people's lives. He said:

As a state we have to cut spending. Our infrastructure has already been sacrificed and so has the states young peoples' futures.

Commenter snolover12 speaks up as a local business owner in Michigan, saying the state is not as "business friendly" as some suggest.

As a business owner, that sells products to the State of Michigan,
I'm in complete agreement that the State has become too big. One of the
most recent brainstorms (Gov. Jennifer Granholm)'s people have had in the past 2 years is to
have Vendors like us, pay an 'Administrative Fee' to the State of MI,
based on the amount of sales for the past year. It's called MI-Deal.
The 'Administrative Fee' is a Kickback, pure & simple, and does
nothing but justify some bureaucratic State employee's job. It's like
legally holding up MI businesses. And they call this a 'business
friendly' climate? I think not.

getittogether seems to doubt Hoekstra's promises in general, suggesting he is a politician after all.

Candidates have been promising these things since I was born and not one of them has done it that I can remember. Why should we believe Pete is any different?